


the last man standing on the battleground

by Lire_Casander



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Language, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 18:36:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17924165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: i don’t know what is brokenyou act like you don’t belong here at allif you’ve really lost somethingmaybe you should start where you’ve been before





	the last man standing on the battleground

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary from _You're Already Home_ by Hanson. The rest of the lyrics credits go to Counting crows, Everclear, NSYNC, Paula Cole, No Doubt and Nirvana. I do not own anything. Characters and songs are owned by their creators.
> 
> English is not my first language, and this is unbeta'ed. Please be gentle, I haven't been around much as of lately and my writing might be rusty. I am still trying to find my way back to the angsty side of fanfiction.

**the last man standing on the battleground**

**~ if dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts ~**

The rush catches him off guard, the sheer joy when he realizes _he_ is back. Suddenly the fact that he is going to be homeless yet once again pales in comparison with the eyes gazing back from below the beret, the air becomes unbreathable and the earth loses its pull of gravity. He almost falters when he realizes who is the soldier sticking the notice on his door.

But he has a reputation to live up to, and a home to defend. So he pulls up the irony and kicks him out with a few well-addressed remarks about Sergeant Manes.

As if that would have gotten him rid of Alex Manes of all Roswell soldiers.

He is sure the reunion isn’t going as smoothly as everyone might have thought. Although for him it was being a whole success of alcohol and flirting until the shadow of a crutch grows on his feet. The words lace with the sneer, the swagger and the sweat, and all of a sudden he is seventeen again, no armor, just a bare heart and _nostalgia’s a bitch_ and _what I want doesn’t matter_ and a kiss.

No.

 _The_ kiss.

**~ we never ask ourselves the questions to the answers that nobody even wants to know ~**

If the conversation with Mrs Evans-Bracken had gone worse, they would have ended back in the precinct. He doesn’t understand the fixation Isobel has with helping Max Righteous-As-Fuck Evans, even if he’s her brother. No one really cared about him that much while growing up, always the outcast, always the underdog. Still, he somehow fitted in whenever those eyes were looking in his direction. A beat gone, _Is there really nobody in this world that you wouldn't risk everything to save?_ , a sad effort in masking the truth and there he goes, looking all the way to the booth in the corner only to not have that gaze fixed on his.

He can’t wait to get trashed, but he has important stuff to get to.

Packing up a whole life of research is never easy. Add to that the fact that he has to run through old pictures every now and then, and the memories never fade. The boxes pile up against the back of the door, ready for a ride back to the junkyard, while he looks down once again – _always_ – to the same frame, the guitar and the hands, the eyes never leaving the strings, his own gaze never faltering.

He is exactly where he was ten years ago, only older, not any wiser. The images of a much happier time never leave him, the music and the laughter, the hiding spots where he could be free, the incredible feeling of being alive, of being young, of being anything but _human_. Never in his life had he felt less of out of the Earth than in his teenage years, when almost everything was as easy as running away to the desert and breathing in the cool air of the midnight landscape.

He is still the same young kid, afraid of his own shadow, right after discovering that there is something bigger than himself in this world – a kid finding out about love and being loved.

With a sigh, he throws one last look at the picture, at the scar in his hand, and closes the box – closes the door to his memories – to keep packing up his few belongings.

Life, however, doesn’t agree with him being nonchalant about riding up back to where he started, and puts a soldier – so not dressed up for the moment – in his way just to test him.

Never one for small talk, he listens through a whole heartfelt speech that renders _him_ speechless – he, the one with the million comebacks –, a speech that leaves him stranded for air and hopelessly back in love.

Has he ever been out of love?

 _Not really_ becomes his mantra for that night – and the morning that follows, even though it all may come down to ashes once again.

He doesn’t care, _not really_ , not anymore. He seems to be right where he belongs.

**~ no matter what i do, i feel the pain ~**

The words keep echoing in his mind. _I’m an airman, I can’t be with a criminal_ , over and over again, until the sounds melt with each other and all he hears, all he _feels_ , is the derisive snarl accompanying the words. Not that he’s a saint of his own, what with his tendency to shrug everything off with a snarky attitude, with a _guess you're still the guy just looking for any excuse to walk away, huh?_ instead of everything he had wanted to say.

As, for example, how much those eyes looking back at him make him feel. 

He hadn’t been lying when he had said that all his life he had been at the mercy of criminals. It was the understatement of the century. From the beginning, when he had just been a small and scared child completely naked in the darkness, when every family had overseen him, when in the end the Evans had adopted Max and Iz, until the very end of time – mostly known him finally becoming of age – the system had been putting him under a pressure not one human could have stood. His experience tells him that neither an alien, not even one with his powers, would have been able to survive the situation unscathed.

And here he is again, back to square one, smirk back on and heart broken inside.

Lying on his makeshift bed, his mind plays with a metallic mug and some forks while his right hand strums the air absentmindedly. There is no more pain where the scar crosses, but the trauma runs deep inside his soul. He pushes the memories back to where they have been sleeping these past ten years, and turns against the wall for a night full of endless nightmares.

**~ but you don't even notice me ~**

He has only been so sure of something once before. So sure of being right, so sure of being the one who doesn’t need protection, who doesn’t need help. When he remembers how his plot to escape Roswell and become a reputed engineer with love on his side turned out, he feels nausea rising up in his throat.

Well, that didn’t come out as perfect as he had planned, so maybe this new idea of turning himself in for the death of the girls isn’t as good as it sounded in his head. If the looks in Max’s and Isobel’s faces are anything to go by, maybe it isn’t a good idea _at all_.

Anyway, he doesn’t have anywhere better to be than in jail. In fact, he has spent half his adult life in the drunk tank, and the other half struggling to remain alive. He doesn’t know any better.

He doesn’t _want_ to.

Once Max and Isobel drive away to their own fairytale lives, he leans back in his chair under the stars and looks up for answers. The sky has always been his confident throughout the years, and lately it has been his only solace. Maybe the remnants of his family might be somewhere looking for him. The thought has kept him going when the feeling of not being enough – for Max, for Isobel, _for Alex_ – became unbearable.

With a blink of an eye he is seventeen again, standing tall before a closed door, guitar secured on his back, truck ready to take him far away. Fear is something he didn’t know back then, he didn’t respect the feeling of pain and grief simply because he had forgotten how much it hurt. 

Because he had found the source of real happiness, and he was going to live off it forever.

 _Stupid, stupid kid_.

He doesn’t remember much of the night after graduation. He has blocked every memory, but some still haunt him at night. The guitar, the door, the truck. The boot against his hand, pressing him to the ground. The shrieks, the commands. The _pain_. 

If only he would have been strong enough to fight back, reckless enough to bite back, brave enough to rise up against the monster and use his powers to end the craziness in his eyes. But the weight of secrets was stronger than the thrill of love – or maybe his love had never been strong enough to begin with – and in the end he crawled back to the truck and right into Max’s for a quick fix and a ride to the nearest hospital.

Next he knew, Alex was leaving Roswell without saying goodbye. 

_After all, it was me who killed those girls_ as a way of not saying out loud _after all, it was me who died that night_.

**~ this could be the end ~**

The day that begins with a bang ends with an explosion of sorts. Noah has tried his best to find Isobel, but not even Max knows where she is, and the connection they have is spectacularly strong. So they both settle for a search against the clock – he remembers what happened the last time she blacked out to the point of disappearing for hours, and he is sure Max hasn’t forgotten either.

After all, it is the reason why they are in this predicament ten years later.

And then the terror in Isobel’s eyes, the strength and fury in Max’s. He knows things should have been different. _I have been idling because I don't think I deserved a goodbye_ hits home closer than expected. 

The fight with his siblings – for it is what they are, although they might not be related by blood – is the last straw his sanity needs right now. How much he wants to shout _you think it has been any easier for the rest of us, you idiot_ , but he doesn’t. It would be just like admitting the truth of what he has been hiding for ten years, and his macho cowboy façade with more notches in his belt than he can count wouldn’t stand that hard of a blow.

He will never admit to having come back to the Airstream in tears, but Isobel needs him and for once he has to be the shoulder to lean on, strife be damned. _Maybe it's time we all tell the truth to the people we love_ , words spilling out of his mouth before he can filter them. Once said, there is no turning back.

An explosion, indeed.

**~ for this gift i feel blessed ~**

Isobel is sleeping in the makeshift bed, so he is out in the junkyard playing hide and seek with his memories. Once again, he’s had a nightmare, but it felt more like a memory than a bad dream.

 _I think I’m gonna ask Liz out_ pops right in the middle of everything, the Crashdown Café so vivid he can almost feel his sorry ass sitting in one of the booths, looking into Max’s eyes for a truth he cannot bear right now. He shoves his tools to the ground with just one flicker of his finger, and the gasp at his back tells him he is, indeed, not alone.

He doesn’t want to look around. He doesn’t want to hear yet another lecture, nor listen to another breakdown. He just wants to crawl under a rock and keep on calculating his way out of this planet to somewhere nobody could ever hurt him again.

“How did you do that?” comes the voice, accompanied by a sound that resembles suspiciously to a crutch raking the ground. He freezes. “Guerin, how did you do that?”

He turns around, fear etched in every wrinkle, tense and ready for a fight. He doesn’t have the chance, though. Alex Manes is simply looking at him, a piece of crystal fiercely clutched in his left hand.

“None of your business,” he spits back. “Where did you get that from?”

“An answer for an answer, Guerin,” Alex replies, serene.

“You’re not going to like my answer, Alex.”

“Just try me, Michael.”

And it’s the use of his name, in a way he hasn’t heard in ten years – with patience, with love – that finally breaks him. He tries to fight the secret from breaking, his heart from pouring, but it’s like a dam opened at the worst moment possible.

Years of mourning, of waiting, of blaming himself over something he couldn’t have controlled spills out of his mouth in a ramble that should have scared anyone, except Alex Manes. He stands still for the whole speech – through the _I came down with the crash in 1947_ with an eyebrow shot up to the _I should have never let your father send you away without a fight_ which earns him a gasp. In the end, he is panting for air, breath ragged and heart pounding, waiting in trepidation for a reaction, any reaction.

“I assume Isobel is inside,” are the first words that come from Alex’s side. “Why don’t we take this inside and you wake her up while I prepare some coffee? There are lots of things to explain.”

“Yeah,” he manages, not stammering – _much_.

“Starting with that tendency of yours of not saying things in time,” Alex teases, and he blinks back a tear he doesn’t know he was holding back. “Had you told me you had faced my father for me back then…”

“Wait, from everything I have told you, _that’s_ what you choose to bring up now?” he asks in stupid disbelief.

“Well, that would have saved us a lot of pain. You being an alien?” Alex shrugs. “Probably wouldn’t’ have believed it without having seen you moving things around with your mind. Although, deep down, I’ve always known you weren’t from this Earth, Guerin.”

“I like it most when you call me by my name,” he timidly remarks.

“Good thing you’re listening to me when I’m talking to you,” Alex smiles a sad smile. “Let’s take this inside. We have a lot to talk about, so maybe you can call Max? I’m guessing the Evans twins have also a say in all this.”

Alex takes a step towards the Airstream, but he is quicker and grasps his arms, electricity rushing through him just like a couple of days before. “Aren’t you scared? Mad?”

“Oh, I’m mad, Guerin. But our fight can wait. First things first, and after you all believe I am here to help you, maybe we can start from the beginning ourselves. I still owe you a declaration of sorts.”

He can’t help himself and pulls Alex into a tight embrace, crutch falling to the ground as the soldier crashes against him. “I’m never letting you go away. Ever.”

“Good,” Alex whispers against his lips. “I wasn’t thinking of leaving. Ever again.”

And this time, he is seventeen again, and he is never looking away.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to show how words can make or break a man. I'm not sure I have managed to convey the pain and the joy they can bring to someone, but I hope at least someone has enhoyed my take on things.


End file.
